Let’s change the topic to something lighter
seeing as I am winding up this blog soon. One of the things that I first
noticed here was the lack of any dress norms, especially in the workplace. Now
that I’ve been here 2 months and I’ve got only the return portion of my plane
ticket, I’ve realized that the lack of these norms has its consequences.
Australian’s really miss “ going out as someone or something”. They love
costumes.
I’ve already spoken about the hordes on
Zombie Day: 3000 people. I’ve spoken of
the outfits at the horse races and of the Salmon Dance. Whenever I’ve been on
the street on public holidays, I’ve seen people in costumes. Some of them were
dressed like this for group activities, but the majority were dressed like that
because they were having a party (let’s just say a private one).
In Australia just as in Spain the gradual dissolution of marriage has led to more divorce parties being celebrated. Here they fill the void by going barefoot to the office (they pull it off without foot odour) in fancy dress. Similarly, you’ll see a man dressed as a smurf hailing a taxi; a group of women dressed as strippers building sandcastles at the beach with their kids or a man dressed as a Super Mario brother playing a rich man’s petanque (turns out that’s their version of bowling here).
Photos: The top one (from a comic
convention and the bottom one (unidentifiable but it is one of the ten that I
have of people in costumes for no apparent reason) were taken on different days
and in different cities. Guess the common link between the costumes.
